I've seen both sides of this argument - one claims an apocalyptic rise of the machines type scenario, where AI eventually becomes sentient and realises that humans are pointless and irrelevant, and removes us; another predicts a utopian era, wherein machines carry out all mundane work and humans enjoy universal income, endless leisure time and the pursuit of happiness.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle - machines will continue to replace much human labour - and we'll no doubt have to wrestle with the rights and status of super advanced AI - but most of the utopian, pursuit of happiness stuff will be reserved for the privileged few; so it goes.

I've seen both sides of this argument - one claims an apocalyptic rise of the machines type scenario, where AI eventually becomes sentient and realises that humans are pointless and irrelevant, and removes us; another predicts a utopian era, wherein machines carry out all mundane work and humans enjoy universal income, endless leisure time and the pursuit of happiness.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle - machines will continue to replace much human labour - and we'll no doubt have to wrestle with the rights and status of super advanced AI - but most of the utopian, pursuit of happiness stuff will be reserved for the privileged few; so it goes.

Possibly, but it's something we should be wary of. Mass automation will continue, with everything talking to everything else. Autonomous vehicles and even weaponry (think patrol boats, fighters, drones, subs, tanks) are already in development, indeed some already existence even if not mainstream.

Given that human hackers can probably access most of these things, and that everything will be communicating, a powerful enough AI that reaches a dark conclusion could do the same and potentially control not only the military, but also stuff like air traffic control, traffic lights, shipping, satellites, banking, cars, the internet, your central heating, whatever.

I've seen both sides of this argument - one claims an apocalyptic rise of the machines type scenario, where AI eventually becomes sentient and realises that humans are pointless and irrelevant, and removes us; another predicts a utopian era, wherein machines carry out all mundane work and humans enjoy universal income, endless leisure time and the pursuit of happiness.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle - machines will continue to replace much human labour - and we'll no doubt have to wrestle with the rights and status of super advanced AI - but most of the utopian, pursuit of happiness stuff will be reserved for the privileged few; so it goes.

Possibly, but it's something we should be wary of. Mass automation will continue, with everything talking to everything else. Autonomous vehicles and even weaponry (think patrol boats, fighters, drones, subs, tanks) are already in development, indeed some already existence even if not mainstream.

Given that human hackers can probably access most of these things, and that everything will be communicating, a powerful enough AI that reaches a dark conclusion could do the same and potentially control not only the military, but also stuff like air traffic control, traffic lights, shipping, satellites, banking, cars, the internet, your central heating, whatever.

That is, until someone turns it off at the plug.

I could be wrong but I believe some AI experiments have ended darkly?

It's absolutely a given that there will be malevolent actors involved as AI advances; there are now, with such supposedly mundane things as social media - turns out they only ever saw us as products or customers and just wanted our data (who knew?!) - so it's a certainty that that kind of behaviour will ramp up as the possibilities broaden - when, as you suggest, everything we own and use and interact with knows everything about us and can communicate that information across platforms.

Imagine a health monitoring device, that knows everything about your blood sugar, cortisol, cholesterol, heart rate and all that jazz; it tells your supermarket what to deliver, your health insurance what to charge you, and your employer how productive you are likely to be; it then communicates with your self-driving car, which delivers you to a gym every morning, which has already been told that you need to do 30 minutes of cardio to get yourself back on track; if you refuse to comply, your food is rationed, your insurance goes up and your employer replaces you with someone who takes their health more seriously and isn't likely to keel over on the job.

As a lifelong sci-fi consumer, more and more of what I've read and watched starts to look like documentary rather than fiction; Black Mirror will prove to be the work of a visionary futurist rather than a genius misanthropic storyteller.

Just like self driving cars which are already programmed to sacrifice the vulnerable over the occupants (yes Mercedes that's you yah scumbags) it will surely depend on if we are able to put in failsafe's akin to the 3 laws of robotics (later a 4th law) that Isaac Asimov came up with to protect human kind.On what basis are those seemingly in the know reckoning that artificial intelligence would want to destroy an inferior/irrelevant being, how did they arrive at this conclusion that AI would become so malevolent?

Bren. I hear you with regards Black Mirror! I can totally see some of it coming true. I will be honest though, I do worry about my children growing up in the robot/A.I era. Maybe our concerns won’t come true!

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